Best of 2008

Post Cards From the County on the Edge of Forever

Since this issue looks like a bunch of post cards, let's start with a bumper sticker. (We are just that crazy! Wocka wocka!) If you live, or have lived, anywhere as sunny, beachy and/or ocean breezy as Orange County, you've seen the sticker. Hell, maybe your ride even sported one. Goes like this:

"Some of us aren't on vacation."

Now, this year's Best of OC issue is a fantastic resource for any tourist: where to park and not to park, where to spot our local ghosts, where to pick up a porn star, etc. But it's also a big ol' love letter to everything weird and wonderful between the mouth of the Los Angeles River and Camp Pendleton. In these pages, our stomping ground also gets a series of sloppy kisses from a dozen of your friends and neighbors: punk rock icons, bakers, ballplayers, interior designers and more.

And who could ask for a better tour guide to our hometown(s) than the muy guapa Miss Lisa Love? Not that we'd advocate mutilating our own issue, but you might find yourself seized by the urge to, well, pin up our cover and section openers.

So join us on this journey through the OC that is (or should be) in the style of the OC that was (or should have been). And the best part is you don't have to wish you were here.

Cover Credits Photography: Tim Melideo. Model: Lisa Love, lisalove@me.com. Illustration: Jim Lange/Retro Reps. Hair for Lisa Love: Melody White, www.melodywhite.com. Cover Design: Kelly Lewis, Andrea Adams.